Spotless
by Mikolaj
Summary: An AU based on the 2004 film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Julian Keller seeks to forget about ex-girlfriend Laura Kinney after she apparently does the same. Hellion/X-23.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: An AU based on the 2004 film _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. _

- 1:30 A.M., January 12th-

"What are you reading?"

The subway train clattered noisily along its track, hand rails swinging to and fro and the fluorescent lights flickering on and off. What of those weren't flickering were dim and humming loudly, ready to burn out. When she'd gotten on the train, he'd been asleep, headphones hung around his neck. They were hooked up to some device, but there was no music playing. She had deemed him a non-threat, some college student who had stayed out partying all night (though this had an equal chance of being unlikely, as he did not smell of alcohol).

She looked up from her text and saw that he had not moved, with his head still resting against a metal hand bar. His eyes were blue, like from the pictures she'd seen of the ocean. Whenever she'd been to see the ocean herself, it was dull and gray, or a sickly green. His accent was not local, not from New York. He most likely hailed from the Los Angeles area. He appeared to be 5'10", although slouching, and—and she'd promised herself to stop analyzing everyone that she met.

"It is a collection of Voltaire's plays." To show him this, as if he could have disbelieved her words, she held up the second-hand book, which had the title clearly printed on it. He studied it for a moment, squinting in his disorientation, before rummaging through his bag and pulling out a similar copy of the same text.

"Man is free at the instant he wants to be." he quoted without opening the book, and she dog-eared her own copy and closed it.

"Brutus, Act II, Scene I." She supplied, and he grinned widely from ear to ear, then hefted his bag and moved to sit beside her without any invitation.

"Are you reading that for a course?" He asked, watching her with those ocean-blue eyes. Now that he was closer, she could see that he was possibly of Germanic descent, from the facial shape, and that his choice in store-bought scents was expensive, though not overused. She could smell his natural scent underneath it.

"No." She answered simply. "I enjoy his work."

This answer seemed to please him, and he showed it, grinning from ear to ear. "Me, too. I mean, sure, the guy's a sarcastic asshole, but he's one of the better Enlightened thinkers. He's probably one of the only Frenchmen I'd get along with."

She tilted her head and frowned, just a bit. "You are naturally combative towards the French?"

He stared at her for a moment in pause, making her feel uncomfortable, like she'd done something wrong. Then, he laughed; the sound was warm and seemed to fill the entire train car. She enjoyed it.

"Isn't everyone? I'm Julian, by the way." He took off his glove and extended his hand to her. She took it in hers and shook it. His hands were warm and strong, like he'd not had to perform any sort of manual labor.

"Laura." She watched him pull his glove back on and shoulder his bag. The train was coming to a halt at the next station, her station and his as well, if his preparations were of any valuable indication.

"You're getting off here?"

"Yes. I intend on retiring and spending the majority of tomorrow in bed. I have not slept in 43 hours."

"Christ, you have a big assignment or something?" Julian winced, sympathetically. Apparently, he had also had to go for long stints without sleep before.

"You could say that." The word 'assignment' was close enough to what she'd been doing for the past forty-three hours.

"Well, let me give you a ride home. My car's parked near here. I'll drive you."

Laura considered this. It was several blocks' walk from the subway station to her apartment, and it was below freezing at this time of night. The chance of her being assaulted was very high.

"Okay." she agreed, and she walked side-by-side with him to his car.

-12:45 P.M., January 10th-

Julian lugged the two large black plastic garbage bags into the small, sterile-smelling clinic, ignoring the couple of other prospective patients that sat in the hard, plastic chairs. He marched straight over to the receptionist, whose name he'd never caught and never cared to, and leaned up against the counter.

"Tell Dr. Frost I'm here," he told her, probably a little more harshly than he'd intended to.

"No need, Mister Keller, I'm well aware." He heard the doctor come down the cramped hallway and stood aside so that she could open the door. She was a younger woman, probably mid-thirties, who'd had plenty of very expensive and very good plastic surgery done.

"I trust you've brought everything we need?"

He held up the bags and looked at her impatiently.

"Very well. Right this way, please. My assistant will take those for you—Celeste?"

A woman identical to the receptionist took the two bags from him, and handed one to a third. So there were triplets. Maybe if he were a stupid high school sophomore and didn't feel like he'd had his heart ripped clean out of his chest, he would have tried to get all of them in bed at once. He would have failed miserably.

Frost led him to a room and had him sit with his head in a strange contraption, while one of the triplets (this one's name tag read Irma) drew two little blue circles on either side of his head.

"This machine mimics mutant telepathy. I invented it myself." Frost explained, and she turned on a light on the machine, so that two blue lasers shone on his head in correspondence with the circles. "We are going to show you each of the items that you've brought us. As a natural response, you should come up with a memory that's associated with that item, and with the person that you wish to forget. After we have cycled through everything, we will dispose of the items so that you have no reminder of this person in your home. We will place these memories in order from most recent to least recent, and while you sleep in your own bed tonight, my assistants and I will cycle through them from there, erasing each one from your mind while you are in a drugged sleep. Tomorrow morning, you will wake up as you did normally, though it may take extra time for the effects of the drugs to wear off."

Julian vaguely nodded along, listening to her dull recitation. The English accent didn't do anything but make him sleepier as he listened to her. Another assistant, this time Celeste, turned the machine on so that it whirred, like an MRI.

"Let's begin erasing Miss Kinney, shall we?" Frost smiled, and Irma set a picture down in front of him on a small tray.

The photograph was one of his favorites, of the two of them on a beach over the summer. They were both smiling, which was rare because she didn't often smile. He had his arm wrapped around her waist, and she had her head resting against his shoulder, and the sun was rising somewhere nearby. Her eyes were so fucking green and gorgeous that they could have been emeralds.

He looked at the picture a minute longer, then leaned back as best he could in the contraption, and began to remember what it was that he was paying several thousand dollars to forget.

- 6:30 A.M., July 1st-

Julian dismantled the camera from its tripod and shoved everything back into the bag. They'd finally gotten one good picture together in the light of the rising sun. It was damn near impossible to get a picture by moonlight, but they'd waited up the entire time, pretty much chasing the waves.

She'd laughed so much more that night than he'd ever thought possible. Laura had the most beautiful laugh he'd ever heard, and he wanted to hear it every day.

He looked over at her, and saw that she was knelt down in the wet sand, which clung to the soles of her bare feet. She was studying something very intently, and the look on her face was so goddamned adorable that he had to go see what had grabbed her attention.

"What is it, Laura?" Julian kept his voice quiet, as there was no need to yell with them being so close. He reached out and brushed some of her hair behind her ear and followed her gaze down to the sand and her hands in front of her. A hermit crab had unearthed itself and was scuttling across the palm of her hand.

"I could hear it moving beneath the sand." Laura looked up at him. "The sounds were very small. I was curious."

"It's probably trying to get out of here before it drowns in the high tide." He explained. Immediately, Laura looked concerned, and she rose up to her feet and hurried to move the crab to higher ground. She sat with it for a moment, ensuring its safety, before returning to sit by Julian's side. He laughed wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head.

"It would have been fine on its own, beautiful." At that, Laura looked a bit embarrassed, her cheeks going red.

"Perhaps, but those with power should ensure the safety of those that have none. That is what I believe." She explained. Julian cupped Laura's cheek in his hand and kissed her, then ran his thumb over her cheekbone when they pulled apart.

"It's a good belief. Now, come on, let's get home and get to bed." Laura held onto his hand tightly and watched with that ever-present amazement as he lifted the camera bag with that green aura that came directly from his powerful thoughts.

- 7:23 P.M., April 18th-

"You are a mutant."

"Yes," Julian coughed and rolled onto his back on his couch, enough to see the rainbow of light that shone onto his ceiling through some prism. He felt like hell; his neck was stiff and his entire body ached and he wasn't even able to make it into his bed the night before. It took all of his telekinetic exertion to pull the phone from its base in the kitchen and call Laura over, the one person he'd trust with a secret like this.

He regretted it now. She was too quiet, way too quiet, and he was afraid that she was going to run out of the apartment and never want to see him again. Julian didn't want that. God knows he didn't want that.

She made him take some medication and kissed his forehead as a reward when he'd swallowed the pills down with a gulp of honey-sweetened tea. The tea was weak, like she'd been too worried about letting it get cold to let the teabag steep long enough.

"You are not alone." Laura covered him with a quilt, something she'd brought from her apartment, and she sat in a nearby armchair, not at all intending to leave until he was better. The thought alone made him relax enough to want to sleep, and he drifted off, with the white quilt pulled over his nose.

- 7:03 A.M., September 8th-

He woke up to the sound of her sobbing against his chest and thunder rumbling angrily outside. Her head was tucked underneath the white-bordered quilt with a blue sky patched into it, the kind with white clouds that weren't a thing like the angry gray ones outside.

"Laura, honey, what's wrong?" Julian pulled her closer, running his fingers against her bare shoulder blade. They were still naked from the night before, and despite the fact that he could feel her breasts against his chest, there was nothing sexual about any of it.

"You should not be with me," Laura cried. Julian ran his fingers through her hair and tried to calm her down with gentle touches.

"Why the hell not, beautiful?"

"I am a monster." She hiccuped and looked up at him with those tear-filled emerald eyes that made his heart ache. "I was created to be a monster. A tool that is only good for killing." Laura cried on him more as she explained to him her origin in a laboratory, her harsh, inhumane training, the forced activation of her mutant gene, the missions she'd been made to go on. The life she'd been forced to live. By the end of it, Julian was crying, too. He kissed her everywhere, her face, her lips, her neck, anywhere he could to keep her calm.

"You aren't a monster. You're mine. You're mine and you're beautiful and you're perfect and not a goddamn thing in the whole fucking world can say otherwise. Do you understand?" Julian rest his forehead against Laura's and looked into her eyes, which were a little red and puffy but spectacular nonetheless.

"Yes." She replied, sounding watery and a bit broken. He kissed her again, and rubbed her back, and closed his eyes.

"I love you, Laura."

He heard her make some little noise, something that he couldn't quite pick up against another loud clap of thunder, but he most definitely heard when she spoke against the downpour of rain.

"I love you, too, Julian."

- 12:21 A.M., January 11th-

"I can't believe it."

"Are you really thinking about that?"

"You know that's against Frost's rules."

Celeste Cuckoo stared down at the cup of coffee in her hands and then glanced back at the patient that they were dealing with that night; Julian Keller, a healthy young 21-year-old who was very attractive and who would shortly be very, very eligible.

"Like you two haven't been guilty of wanting to do—and then actually doing—the same thing." She looked accusingly at Mindee and Phoebe, whom she'd caught in bed with former clinic patients on separate occasions, and whom she'd heard flirting with several more. It was embarrassing, to think that since Frost had opened up her clinic, that she'd been the good triplet.

"This is different. Those weren't mutants." Phoebe pointed at her with a crueller in her hand.

Celeste 'harrumphed' and went back to looking at the monitor.

"Well, the erasure process is proceeding as planned. Only six more hours until completion."

They all collectively groaned at the thought of being in the apartment of an attractive, sleeping man that they couldn't do anything to or with. They weren't even allowed to turn on the television or use his phone to make calls.

All that they could do was to sit and wait and observe him as he lost the most important part of his life.


	2. Chapter 2

- 5:15 P.M., May 3rd-

_'I can't believe it.' _

_'Are you really thinking about that?' _

Julian frowned and and watched himself while listening to the distorted dialogue that played in the background of the scene he was watching, which seemed to involve a very tense dinner between himself and Laura. They weren't saying anything to each other, just watching some news report on television about a bunch of mutant hate crimes. They didn't even teasingly steal bits of each other's meals like they'd grown accustomed to doing.

What was going on? Oh, that's right. He was getting his memory of her era- _**No!**_ Why would he do that? No, no, he couldn't. He couldn't ever do that. Laura was so precious to him and he was just being so bitter, and stupid, and...

The walls of the apartment began to dissolve away and crumble down into piles of plaster and drywall, and the two of them sat unaffected in the memory. Was this some sort of symbolism, to show how their relationship was falling apart? Either way, it was shit.

"Hey!" He shouted, trying his hardest to get the attention of the girls performing the procedure on him. Weren't they telepaths? Couldn't they hear him? "Hey! Hey, listen to me! I take it back, make it stop! Make it stop! I take it back! I don't want to forget her!"

Julian spun back around and saw the two of them dissolving away as well, Laura going first and him still unaffected. Was that how he'd be? Completely unaffected by the loss of Laura from his mind? He couldn't let that happen!

"Stop it! Turn it off! Make it stop!" he fell to his knees and grabbed onto his head as the whole world fell apart around him and everything went into black.

- 12:00 A.M., June 22nd -

He woke up in bed with her, her back pressed against his chest. She must have just taken a shower not too long ago, because her hair smelled like his shampoo, and he found it pretty attractive on her. She needed to use it all the time.

Julian was about to doze off again when he remembered, again, that he was in the middle of getting his memories erased. He couldn't let that happen.

"No. Wake up. Laura." He shook her shoulder, and she snapped awake instantly, turning her head to look at him.

"What is it, Julian?"

"They're... they're erasing my memory of you. Laura. We have to go. We have to... to _hide_ you, somewhere where they can't erase you." before she could respond, he grabbed her face in his hands and stared into her eyes, which were full of confusion.

"I can't ever let anyone take you from me."

"Okay," she blinked. "Let's hide. Where should we hide?"

"In a memory that you weren't in."

- 9:43 P.M., January 8th -

"I don't get it," Julian sat in the stairwell of the tiny little house that belonged to his friend. He was still holding the box there in his hand, and he had stared at it so much that it he'd memorized everything about it, from the feel of the soft, black fiber on top to the cool bite of the brass hinge. He'd opened it up and run his fingers over the red silk interior, and the ring-

He snapped it shut before he could look at the ring.

"Get what? What's there to get?" Cessily Kincaid stretched one long, metallic arm up the stairs past him to grab a basket of laundry, which he knew to tilt himself away from if he didn't want to be concussed by it.

"I saw her with another guy, Cess. This... white-haired guy. Younger than me... I don't know. They were talking, and laughing, and they..." He buried his face into his gloved hands and tried not to break down. Cessily was one of the few people that he could break down in front of but probably the only one that he didn't want to do that to. She was like his little sister, and big brothers didn't do that to their little sister.

"Why don't I make you some tea, huh?" She pat his shoulder affectionately and moved into the kitchen to do just that. Julian raised his head from his hands and looked around Cessily's immaculate home—he'd lived there before previously, when an apartment that he'd been renting had burnt down in an electrical fire.

Feeling a little nosy, he sorted through her mail and decided to meet her OCD compulsions by sorting it from largest to smallest. As he did so, a large, white envelope caught his eye, and something seemed familiar about it. Where had he seen it before... yes! His neighbor, Foley, had one. He'd seen it before when he'd been getting his own mail on the way from work! The pristine white envelope from Frost Incorporated.

Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he tore the envelope open. A bunch of advertisements came spilling out, along with a card; one one side of it, in dark silver foil text, was some quote from a Pope or something he could care less about, then on the front...

"Miss Cessily Kincaid,

We at Frost Inc. send you this message to inform you that Laura Kinney has undergone a procedure to have Julian Keller erased from her life and her memory. Please do not bring him or their prior relationship up in conversation with her. If you wish to undergo our services yourself, please make an appointment by calling our office Monday-Thursday between the hours of 10:00 and 4:00.

Thank you for your cooperation,

Dr. E. Frost"

Julian read the paper over and over and over again until he couldn't see straight. Yes, they'd had an argument, an altercation, but was it really enough to warrant this joke? It had to be a joke, things like this didn't really exist. Did they?

"What the fuck is this?" He asked quietly, when Cessily came back into the room, as if she'd have the answer to this mystery that her unopened, unseen mail had presented him.

"Julian, that's my-"

"She talked to you about everything, Cessily! So tell me what the fuck this is!" Julian screamed at the poor girl, who dropped the mug of tea on the floor in surprise. Her bottom lip quivered for a minute, like she was going to cry, but she took a deep 'breath,' rubbed at her arm, and began to avoid eye contact.

"I'm sorry, Julian. She was so upset when she came over here the other night, she must have seen a commercial for it or something..."

Julian grabbed the card firmly in his hand, shoved the engagement ring box back into his pocket, and stormed out, using his telekinesis to slam the door behind him and not caring who the hell saw.

- 10:00 A.M. January 9th -

"I need to see Dr. Frost." Julian slammed his hands down on the counter and made the receptionist jump.

"I'm sorry, sir, she has other patients, you're going to have to wait-"

"I don't give a shit! I need to see this Frost _now! I need to know what this means!_" Julian waved the card from Cessily's mail in her face, and before the receptionist could grab the phone, he heard a female voice speak directly into his head.

_'Mister Keller, feel free to come back through that door to your left and I'll explain everything that you could want to know.' _

Damn telepaths were everywhere anymore. Julian wrenched open the door and slammed it shut behind him, then stormed back to where Emma Frost sat in a rather normal-looking examination room. She looked very out of place for the tiny little hole-in-the-wall clinic. That kind of woman should have been sitting behind the headmistress' desk of some elite school.

"What is this?" he demanded of her, throwing the card at her. It landed in her lap, though he would have much rather it cut across her face or something. She lifted it in her latex-gloved hand, examined it carefully, and then raised a brow at Julian.

He felt like she was sizing him up, determining the best way to appropriately kill him.

"This, Mister Keller, is a notice meant for Miss Kincaid concerning the memory erasure of Laura Kinney. The procedure took place two days ago. You are now no longer a part of her life at all, as she wanted it to be. I believe that you were sent a card as well..."

Julian telekinetically tore the card into shreds and sent them all back at Frost's face, her facade not dropping for even a second. He didn't know what the hell to feel; hurt, angry, and betrayed were the top three choices. Bitter was pretty close up there, too. The doctor stared at him for a good long while, before he finally sank down onto the examination table and shrugged off his heavy winter coat.

"Do it to me, too. I want to forget her." he said coldly. Frost smiled, though there was no warmth to it.

"I'll write you in for tomorrow."

- 12:11 A.M., January 1st -

"What do you mean, you were attacked?" Julian grabbed Laura's shoulders and took the bag away from her, the one she was packing full of her clothes. "Why does this mean we have to break up? Laura, answer me!"

"You would not understand," she said hurriedly, like she was panicking, which she was admittedly doing. "Just know that you are in danger, and this is the easiest solution."

"No, it's not! Laura, you've seen how strong I am, you've seen that I can take care of myself. For Christ's sake, I was on the recruiting list for the damned X-Men!"

She stopped halfway through throwing their quilt into the bag, and she looked up at him.

"You refused it." She stated plainly.

"Because they wouldn't let you come with me."

"That was your dream."

"Not anymore. You are."

Laura looked touched for a minute, then shoved the quilt into the bag and zipped it up.

"You are an idiot." She huffed, and stormed off down the hall. Julian gave chase. His head was pounding something horrible from the miserable day of college courses he'd had—one of his professors had been nearly impossible to deal with, and his telekinesis was begging to be used to the point where he'd nearly blown up a supply cabinet or seven.

"You know what? Maybe I am! Maybe I was an idiot to give up the thing that I wanted for years and years to be with the girl that doesn't even have enough faith in me to keep her safe! Maybe we should break it off, Laura! Maybe we should just fucking forget everything!"

_(Oh my god, did I really say that? Is this really all my fault? Did I say that to her?)_

Julian watched her storm out of the apartment building and waited a full sixty seconds before realizing his mistake and running down to his car so that he could chase after her. There were two long scratches in the door, gouging straight through, but he didn't have time to care.

"Laura! Laura, I'm sorry." He drove alongside her as she stomped up the street. "Come on, please, just get in the car. I'll drive you back, we can talk about this... Laura!"

"Go away, Julian!" She sounded like she'd been crying, and he could see that her face was tear stained in the light of the street lamps.

"No! I'm not going away! I'm not leaving you alone."

She changed her route suddenly, heading down a street that was barricaded off to cars for road repairs. He nearly slammed into the striped barricade and stopped short just before he did, much to the displeasure of some honking motorist behind him.

Julian sat there and watched as Laura ran off, then he rest his head against his steering wheel and bit his cheek bloody to try and keep himself from weeping. It failed.

- 12:43 A.M., January 11th -

"Hey, something weird is happening."

"Didn't we erase this memory?"

"What is he doing?"

Mindee leaned in and examined the monitor, which showed a scan of his brain. His eyes darted back and forth between the monitor and the patient, who had broken out into a sweat. The collar of his t-shirt was damp with it.

"I think he might be resisting it."

- 9:46 P.M., January 8th -

Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he tore the envelope open. A bunch of advertisements came spilling out, along with a card; one one side of it, in dark silver foil text, was some quote from a Pope or something he could care less about, then on the front...

"Miss Cessily Kincaid,

We at Frost Inc. send you this message to inform you that _ has undergone a procedure to have Julian Keller erased from her life and her memory. Please do not bring him or their prior relationship up in conversation with her. If you wish to undergo our services yourself, please make an appointment by calling our office Monday-Thursday between the hours of 10:00 and 4:00.

Thank you for your cooperation,

Dr. E. Frost"

- 7:22 A.M. December 25th -

"Laura, wake up, honey."

Julian leaned down and kissed Laura, who yawned sleepily and blinked up at him. He could see the reflection of their little Christmas tree in her eyes.

"Julian, what is it?"

"I couldn't wait anymore. Merry Christmas." He tried to telekinetically pull over the box with the necklace he'd purchased for her, but she pulled him back under the blankets instead.

"I do not need anything to celebrate the holiday except for you." She informed him, then went right back to sleep.

- 11:23 A.M., December 26th -

"We are going to be late." Laura tugged Julian down the street, trying to hail a taxi. He frowned. Weren't they just in bed? What was going—the memory erasing!

"We have to get out of here, now!" He pulled her away from a taxi that was stopping and chased down the street with her. As he did, everything started to crumble around him, the people began to disappear, and cars began to drop straight out of the sky, though Laura didn't seem to see.

"Julian, our taxi-"

"No time, beautiful!" He dropped his bag onto the ground and ran faster, thinking of some other memory, of any other memory at all, until...

- 12:20 P.M., June 9th, ten years prior-

"Oh, great."

Eleven year old Julian Keller leaned back in the stands, watching his older brother win another soccer game that he couldn't give a shit about. He was berating himself mentally for running into the worst memory he could, and now he couldn't even find-

Oh, he found Laura. Laura, who had taken the place, and the clothing, of the under-dressed and very attractive teenage stepdaughter of his brother's soccer coach, who also happened to be his babysitter tonight while his parents took James out to a restaurant that Julian couldn't go to, under suspicion that he might be allergic to half of the dairy-based menu. Score.

"Julian, I do not appreciate this," she frowned, and he grinned.

"Relax, okay? They won't find you here. I don't have to forget you here."

James scored the winning goal in the background, while his half-eleven-half-twenty-one-year-old mind focused on how low cut Laura's tube top was.

- 7:45 P.M., June 6th, ten years prior-

"You know, you give me my first kiss here."

"I do not. Do not lie, I live in your head." Laura frowned at Julian, who slumped over and groaned. "How long do you think we can continue to evade them?"

"Until morning. We have to keep running until I wake up."

"What if you wake up now, and stop the process?" 

- 4:43 P.M., October 11th -

Julian stared at Laura as she combed leaves out of her hair with her fingers. He was laying back in a pile of them, watching her groom herself. She had a scuff on the toe of her black boot. He didn't know why that was important.

"Can I wake up now? I don't know. I took some pretty heavy drugs."

Somewhere in the park nearby, he could hear a group of elementary school kids run through a pumpkin patch that had been set up for them, eager to take the orange gourds home so that they could paint them and forget about them until their parents had to clean up the stinking, rotten mess before their home was full of gnats.

"You have to try. Please. I... I also do not want you to forget me."

"Well, here goes." Julian shut his eyes tightly and then pulled them open like he was trying to make a funny face, and he stared up at the cloudless, blue sky.

- 12:53 A.M., January 11th -

He could see his ceiling. It was kind of blurry, but he could see his ceiling and smell that someone was using his coffee maker and he was pretty sure that they'd busted into his CD collection. Those three creepy triplets.

"Damn, I lost him."

"Maybe we should call Frost?"

"No, we can't call Frost, she'll kill us!"

"We can't risk him going comatose, that'll ruin everything!" 

Julian couldn't move, couldn't feel, and for a moment, couldn't breathe, and then the drug overpowered him again.

- 11:11 A.M., November 2nd -

"Did your wish come true?"

Laura was watching Julian's watch as they huddled together in the sand of the most frigid beach anyone could ever be on.

"Huh? Yeah. I was awake for a while. It worked, but then I went right back under. They can't find us. They can't find you."

"But you are remembering us again," she was drawing something in the sand with a piece of driftwood. A cat, maybe. Or a squirrel.

"I can fix that."

- 12:13 P.M., April 5th, fifteen years prior-

"I'm king of the castle!" Julian shouted as he slid down the swirly red slide, which everyone knew was the best slide at the entire playpark. "So none of you had better get in the way!"

"Who died and made you king?" Some freckled boy asked, and Julian pushed him into the sandbox.

"Shut up, girly boy. Everyone knows you have a rabbit, so no one will listen to you!" He darted back up to the top of the play unit and adjusted his Burger King crown. He peered around his 'kingdom' with a paper towel tube telescope and found exactly what he needed.

"Damsel!" Julian slid down the fireman's pole and raced over to Laura, with his red cape swishing out behind him. He grabbed her hands and smiled his big, missing-tooth smile (he'd gotten a whole five dollars for that baby tooth).

"Wanna be my Queen?"

Laura blinked at him and said nothing, but seemed to give a tiny bit of a nod that Julian took for a yes.

"Come on, then!" He put the crown on her head and draped the cape over her shoulders and gave the other boys a look that said that no one else was allowed to play with her except for him because they were married by playground rules now and in his playground kingdom there was no divorce.

"Julian, this memory will not work," Laura whispered and took one of his action figures when it was offered to her. It was an action figure of Cyclops, his most treasured.

"Aw, why not?"

"Because this actually happened. This is another memory of us. They have found us again." 

- 3:33 A.M, January 11th -

"See, girls? That wasn't so hard. I've gotten him back on the right track. Was that really worth all of your panicking?"

Emma looked at the triplets, who were quietly huddled around their eclairs like the pastries would save them from her wrath. She hated being woken up in the morning under any circumstance.

"We're sorry," they said all at once, and Emma rolled her eyes.

"Quite all right, girls. Now, it's nearly over..."

- 6:03 P.M., February 14th -

_The first time that I really met her was something kind of incredible. It was at a stupid party, where everyone was getting wasted drunk and high off their asses and we were the only ones sticking to Coke because we knew we had things to do tomorrow. She had her hair back in a braid and she wore fishnets even though it was two degrees outside and she had this locket on a choker. I wanted to grab her and kiss her right there, but it seemed pretty inappropriate. _

"This is it," Laura sipped on her Coke and looked at Julian, who sat on the couch next to her.

"Yeah. This is the last one. After this, I won't remember you. I'm so sorry, Laura. I tried. I really, really tried." He set his full can on the table and ran his hands down his face.

"Maybe we should say goodbye."

"But we never even said hello." The walls were starting to melt and crack and crumble, and the music dulled down to a single, gentle violin chord that kept going on and on like a siren. He could hear the ocean, but they weren't near the ocean. They were in the city.

"Then let's change that. Hello, Julian Keller."

"Hello, Laura Kinney." He was crying again, and he grabbed her and kissed her and didn't want to let go.

"Goodbye, Julian Keller." She began to dissolve away in his arms, like everything else around them.

_I didn't say goodbye. I wouldn't let it be goodbye. I had to have held onto some part of that memory. I wasn't going to give her up so easily, not when I was going to spend the rest of my life with her. Before I blacked out completely, for the final time, I remembered that I didn't give the Frost people the ring, that ring that I had inscribed with our names and some stupid Poe line. _

_I fell asleep, content with that. _

- 7:45 A.M., January 11th -

Julian unplugged his alarm clock from the wall and didn't bother calling in sick to his classes. His head was pounding, his chest was aching, and all that he wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep. So he did.

- 8:29 A.M., January 12th -

"I would like to give you my phone number," Laura said to Julian before shoveling a forkful of pancakes into her mouth. Instead of going back home, they'd gone out to a park and talked for several hours before finally going to a diner for breakfast, which he'd offered to pay for.

"Sure. I'll give you mine, too." Julian rummaged through his coat pocket and pulled out his phone, though he could feel something else in there, too. A little square box. Curiously, he pulled it out, and felt ill. Any guy would know the look of that box—an engagement ring was probably sitting in it. How fucking drunk had he been? He knew he'd woken up hungover the morning before, but...

He opened it and lifted it out to examine it. It was a gold band, with a diamond surrounded by tiny little emeralds, the same emerald green as Laura's eyes. There was an inscription on the band. Some quote from some poem, Annabel Lee or something, along with his name... and the name Laura Kinney.

- 8:32 A.M., January 12th, two booths over -

Emma Frost had betrayed them. Wiped their own memories clean over and over so many times that they had been nothing more than her pets. The Cuckoo triplets were beyond enraged.

All three of them focused their mental power together and, using what they'd observed from Laura Kinney and Julian Keller's mind-wipes, restored every memory that the two of them had together.

That would show Frost that they weren't 'her girls.'

- 8:32 A.M., January 12th -

_Fuck! _The pain in Julian's head was searing, white hot, like his skull was splitting open. He remembered everything, everything ever and it hurt so bad that he wanted to tear his brain out and douse it off with the glass of ice water on the table in front of him.

Had he seriously done that? Had he really gotten his memory erased? His memory of Laura? Why? Why would he do that? How could he be so stupid? And there he was, in some diner with the staff staring at him and those creepy triplets leaving, holding this engagement ring just as Laura was ready to bolt.

"No!" He held her back telekinetically, even though that amplified his headache. "No! No, Laura, you aren't going! I'm not letting you!"

"It is too dangerous, Julian. I told you! The people who created me will come after you. They will hunt you down. That is why I had to forget you, that is why-"

Julian pulled Laura close and cut her off with a kiss, and he refused to let her go until she kissed him back, which took a few seconds to do. When he broke away from her, he held up the ring and made sure that she could see it.

"Do you know what this means? Laura, it means that I don't give a fuck who's coming after you. I'll take care of them. And I'll protect you, and whatever happens, we're going to get through it together because for fuck's sake I love you and I don't ever want to see you kissing stupid ass white haired guys again, okay? Do you understand?"

"Yes," she whispered. He took that to be a yes for everything, and he put the ring on her finger and threw a couple of twenties down on the table and led her out of there.

"Come on. We need to buy a new quilt." Julian told her. "A new quilt and a bigger apartment."

"Okay." Laura sounded nervous, and unsure, but she let him lead her, feeling safe with his large hand covering hers.

- 6:45 A.M., June 11th -

The sun was coming up and shining right into the bedroom. Julian could hear the beach through the screen door. It made him glad that he remembered that his family had left him a Hawaiian beach-front property after they'd died.

Laura was fast asleep beside him, draped under their quilt with a pattern of palm leaves on it. He slid his arm under the quilt and draped it over her waist and just watched her sleep, watched the rise and fall of her chest in those even breaths.

Just six months ago, he'd woken up in frigid New York hating himself and thinking he was hung over because he'd forgotten the most important thing in the world. He was glad that those girls had fixed his brain for whatever reason they had, and he'd wanted to thank them, but when he called the number for Frost Inc., it directed him to a pizza place.

Even though he knew that there wasn't any way his dreams could be better than reality, he kissed the crook of Laura's neck and curled himself around her, settling back into a warm sleep in his paradise of eternal sunshine.


End file.
